It turns out medical organizations lose members if they make decisions based on politics rather than medical science.

Doctors are leaving the British Medical Association in revolt at its opposition to the Cass review, amid claims that the union has been taken over by an ideologically driven “vocal minority”.

See, “ideologically driven” is pretty much the last thing you want a medical association to be. Ideology is not going to cure your illness or mend your broken leg.

Hundreds of members, including NHS clinical leaders and former presidents of medical royal colleges, have gone public with their “dismay” at BMA leaders for voting to reject the Cass review into the care of transgender children and reverse a ban on puberty blockers.

Is the BMA run by teenagers?

Some have resigned from the union after up to 50 years as members, and others said that the BMA’s “abysmal” leadership was “increasingly bonkers” and “ideologically captured”.

We’re sort of used to that with universities and arts organizations, but not so much with the more technical professions. Or is that just me?

Turns out it’s a bit of a coup.

The union’s council, an elected policy-forming body of 69 members, was asked to vote on a motion rejecting the Cass review at a meeting described by critics as “secretive and opaque”. The motion passed, making it formal BMA policy, although the breakdown of votes has not been made available and the BMA’s membership base of 195,000 doctors was not consulted.

The motion was tabled at the BMA council by Tom Dolphin, a consultant anaesthetist in London, and Vassili Crispi, a junior doctor in Birmingham who has said that “rejecting the Cass review is one of many steps we need to take”.

It was backed by Emma Runswick, deputy chair of the BMA council, who is the ringleader of a left-wing and pro-strike coalition of junior doctors elected to the leadership body in 2022. Runswick has described the ban on puberty blockers as a “terrible decision” and repeated a debunked claim that it is linked to more suicides.

Splitters!

Some other senior members of the BMA council were perplexed that they were being asked to vote on the issue at all and said that it did not reflect the views of the wider membership.

Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist and member of the BMA council who opposed the motion, said: “The BMA council contains a vocal minority who have an anti-Cass agenda. They are driving policy in a direction that the membership have not been consulted on and do not agree with.

A direction that is anti-reality and pro-fantasy. Not ideal for a medical organization.

“This minority has voted to block the implementation of Cass, an evidence-based review which took four years to put together. They have no evidence for their opposition. The Cass review is not a matter for a trade union. It is not our business as a union to be doing a critique of the Cass review. It is a waste of time and resources.”

Evidence shmevidence. They don’t like it! They know they’re not supposed to like it because all their friends say so! Trans rights are human rights!! Doctors are terfs!!!!

More than 1,400 doctors, 900 of whom are BMA members, have signed an open letter calling for the BMA to drop its opposition to Cass. The letter criticises the union’s leaders for “going against the principles of evidence-based medicine and against ethical practice”. The letter has been signed by high-profile figures, including nearly 70 professors and 23 former or current presidents of medical royal colleges.

Comments left by signatories include dozens saying that they are resigning or considering resigning their membership. Many doctors criticised members of the council, with one calling for a “vote of no confidence in BMA leadership”, another saying that it was “an abysmal failure of leadership” and another commenting that “activists appear to have been allowed to take over”.

And not just any activists but activists in service of a warped new ideology that says men are women if their passports say so.